This afternoon at the Chicagoland Speedway, Richard Childress, Jeff Burton and Jim Parker, vice president of Caterpillar's North American Commercial Division unveiled the new No. 31 Caterpillar Chevrolet for the 2009 season.

Although the announcement was made in June that Caterpillar would replace AT&T on the hood of Burton's ride, today's unveiling was the first time the car was seen.

"NASCAR is a huge part of Caterpillar's marketing efforts," Parker explained. "We couldn't be more excited to join Richard and the RCR team. This is something special and not something you see every day."

Leaving Bill Davis Racing, next season will mark the company's seventeenth year in NASCAR racing. Team owner Richard Childress commented he had never experienced so many fan emails about a sponsor before. Childress explained that fan involvement "makes you proud how their customers are involved with their product as well."

"Obviously I'm excited as a driver to have a company like CAT stand up and want to be a partner with us," Burton said. "We're really pumped as what we can do together as a partnership."